Robert Ross

Robert Ross (1766-12 September 1814) was a Major-General of the British Army during the French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812. Ross was killed by a US Army sharpshooter at North Point near Baltimore, Maryland in 1814.

Biography
Robert Ross was born in Rostrevor, County Down, Ireland in 1766 to an Anglo-Irish family, and he studied at Trinity College in Dublin before joining the British Army in 1789. Ross fought in the French Revolutionary Wars as a junior officer, taking part in expeditions to the Netherlands and Egypt. In 1808, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and he fought in the Peninsular War under the command of Viscount Wellington. On 27 February 1814, he was wounded at Orthez in France, and he had just returned to service when he was given command of an expeditionary force that was to be sent to invade the United States. He was promoted to Major-General and given command of 4,500 troops, defeating American militiamen at Bladensburg in Maryland before razing Washington DC and attacking the city of Baltimore. At North Point, the advance of his army was delayed by 3,200 American troops, and he was shot by two American skirmishers, with the fatal bullet passing through his right arm and into his chest. Ross died of his wounds while he was being transported back to the fleet.